Selectman inundated with calls after proposal to charge for shopping bags

Friday

Feb 27, 2009 at 12:01 AMFeb 27, 2009 at 1:26 AM

Last week, West Bridgewater selectmen voted, 2-1, to send a letter asking the state Legislature to offer communities the option to assess a 5 cent per grocery bag tax.

Mike Melanson

With a shopping cart full of reusable cloth and thermal bags, Alice Carlson of Bridgewater said a proposed tax on plastic and paper grocery bags could be a good idea.

“Cloth bags hold more. There’s less mess in the house. They’re strong and durable,” said Carlson, a retiree who was shopping Wednesday at Trucchi’s Supermarket in West Bridgewater.

If revenue was used for landfill care or to clean up waterways, she said she wouldn’t mind paying a 5 cent per bag tax.

“If it were to go into the general fund, I would mind,” she said.

But Henry Simpson of Pembroke said taxing grocery bags is a bad idea and communities should instead offer rewards to shoppers who recycle bags or use reusable bags.

“Every which way we turn, we’re paying taxes. We’re paying one way or the other,” said Simpson, 58.

Last week, selectmen voted, 2-1, to send a letter asking the state Legislature to offer communities the option to assess a 5 cent per grocery bag tax.

Supermarkets would charge customers for the bags and revenue would offset a community’s costs to run landfills and recycling programs.

Now, selectmen Chairman Jerry Lawrence, who proposed the fee, said he has changed his mind and is against a grocery bag tax after getting calls from residents mostly opposed to the measure.

“I want to let people know I represent them and I listen,” said Lawrence, who is seeking re-election in April in a contested race against challenger and former Selectman Richard Freitas.

“Maybe a tax isn’t the right way to do it, but we need to do something,” Lawrence said, adding that Trucchi’s uses about 2 million plastic bags a year.

Trucchi’s owner Jim Trucchi said it wouldn’t be fair to assess the tax on one supermarket in one small town.

“If I get competitors around me who don’t charge for the bags, then people may go to the competitors,” Trucchi said, adding the supermarket is one of West Bridgewater’s biggest taxpayers.

Lawrence said he agreed that a local-option tax could drive shoppers from Trucchi’s, West Bridgewater’s only supermarket, to communities without the tax.

“I don’t think a community should pass a tax that handicaps or singles out a business,” he said.

And with the economic meltdown and proposals to increase gas and other state taxes, Lawrence said now is not the time for a local option or statewide grocery bag tax.

One woman shopping at Trucchi’s Wednesday, who would only identify herself as a West Bridgewater resident, said it’s good that selectmen are deciding not to support the tax.

“The way the economy is, not right now,” she said. “People have enough grief and bills. I don’t care how small it is: It adds up.”

Brian Houghton, vice president of the Massachusetts Food Association, which represents the state’s supermarkets and grocery stores, said the supermarket industry is already under assault with proposals to tax snacks, soda, meals and liquor sales.

He said the key to reducing distribution of paper and plastic bags and increasing recycling is education and not a “regressive” and “counter-productive” tax.

The Massachusetts Food Association is working with the state Department of Environmental Protection on a memorandum of understanding to be signed by mid-March.

Under the agreement, stores would increase sales of reusable bags and do more to encourage recycling plastic bags; DEP would offer technical assistance and connect stores with haulers to take away plastic bags for recycling, Houghton said.

“The problem isn’t the bags, but what people do with the bags after the fact,” he said.

Trucchi said voluntary efforts by supermarkets to recycle plastic bags and encourage use of reusable bags are cutting down use of paper and plastic bags.

He said Trucchi’s sold 17,000 reusable cloth bags last year, which cost customers 99 cents per bag, and cut plastic bag consumption by 13 percent.

Customers can bring their plastic bags, even bags from other stores, to Trucchi’s to be recycled, he said.

“More and more people are coming into the store now with reusable bags. People have really taken to it,” Trucchi said.

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